As preached by Sister Cecelia
Holy Wisdom Church
Job 22:1-11,31:16-23,29-37; Colossians 3:5-17; Matthew 25:31-46
We have heard many sermons about the sheep and goats and while
this morning’s Gospel reading might lead one to believe that God will judge us
according to how we live the gospel teachings, I believe the emphasis isn’t on
the judgement. It is on how well we embrace the message that all
humanity is the Christ.
How do we treat the Christ in one another? The meaning of
the parable is not that evil will be punished and good rewarded. But it is the
love of Christ through loving one’s fellow beings that Christ is urging us to
embrace. Jesus taught that God doesn’t judge our sins; but, like the father of
the Prodigal Son, God only has love for us.
Jesus did not urge the crowds to disobey either the civil or
the religious laws. He said to follow the law but to know that obedience to the
law is not the way to the Kingdom of his Father, our God. Jesus stressed that all the laws are fulfilled
when we come to the place in consciousness where we will be able to love God
and our neighbor as ourselves: our whole selves—our psychological selves, our physical
selves, our mind, and all our senses. The meaning of the parable is not that
evil will be punished and good rewarded, but that we love Christ through loving
our fellow beings.
Now, the question in my mind: How do we go about achieving
this Christ Consciousness?
It seems to me that in ancient times the emphasis on being
good was mainly how one took care of orphans and widows. Cultures change, and
the emphasis in recent times is taking care of the poor, the downtrodden, and the
hungry—and being just. The Epistle to the Colossians this morning has whole
lists of what to cultivate within ourselves and a list of what not to
embrace.
Is being good the emphasis we need to achieve this Christ
Consciousness? We think of sin as being the opposite of good. It has been said
by a contemporary Greek Orthodox mystic, Spyros Sathi, that there is no sin; there
is only experience. All humans will grow spiritually until the attainment of theosis—the
realization that one is an integral part of God, the God within.
It’s also been said we are the temple of God.
Would the thought that I am the temple of God enable me to love more as God
loves? I hope it would help me to be more understanding rather than inclined to
bitterness, envy, or cynicism which are attitudes we are inclined to think of as
not being good.
To achieve this Christ Consciousness might require relooking
at the idea of good and evil. Most people who we might think are evil, think
they are doing or being good. Growth is needed, and sometimes it is by making
mistakes that we grow. It is the experience of living, making choices, and
thereby growing.
Achieving this Christ Consciousness takes time. It takes waiting,
which is something most of us would like
to avoid. It is spiritually challenging but is an essential part of life. “Be still
before the Lord and wait patiently” and “Those who wait for the Lord shall
renew their strength” are refrains from the Psalms and there are many more.
Recently I came across something that applies to this
thought of Christ Consciousness:
Two little fish were swimming along toward a spot where they
might find food. Along came a bigger, older fish going the opposite direction.
As he came along beside them, he said “Good morning little ones. How’s the
water?” They each continued on their way but eventually one little fish said to
the other, “What the heck is water?”
Christ is the water.
This coming Lent is an opportunity to be still and realize
that waiting in faith is what God asks us to do as we strive to understand to
really see the Christ in everyone we meet.
Christ is in our midst!
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